Singles' Day Drives Chinese Shoppers

That number handily topped the $14.32 billion worth of goods that Alibaba said it sold on its platform during Singles' Day past year and dwarfed the sales performance of US retail spending catalysts Cyber Monday and Black Friday.

Commerce watchdog the Chinese State Administration for Industry and Commerce summoned Alibaba and 14 other e-commerce companies earlier this week, banning them from making up fake orders and lifting prices before giving out discounts.

It's Singles Day again folks, the time when China loses its mind and goes on a shopping spree.

In May this year, Alibaba said the US Securities and Exchange Commission was looking into how it reports its Single's Day figures. "Having a local presence is key to understanding and tapping into this growth potential".

Tommy Kelly continued; "The projected growth of global e-commerce sales to 2020 is staggering, with a significant amount of this growth forecasted to be in Asia, particularly the Chinese market".

Alibaba is hoping to boost sales from China's biggest annual online-shopping event-Singles' Day-with what it claims is the world's first virtual-reality shopping experience.

No. 6 Ohio State intends to stay on a roll against MarylandHowever, the Midshipmen then went almost five minutes without making a field goal (0-for-7) and the Buckeyes took advantage. The Spartans drove 92 yards the other way and took a 28-0 lead on a 4-yard touchdown pass from O'Connor to Josiah Price.

This year's online shopping bonanza saw an increase in the number of mobile transactions, with 83 percent of the purchases completed on mobile devices. Sports stars David Beckham and Kobe Bryant attended the countdown, though headline act Katy Perry pulled out last minute citing a "family" issue. "People are shifting their consumption from offline to online, and also from other periods of the year to this day of the year", said marketing professor Jing Bing of the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business.

The rise of Singles Day reflects how China's consumers, armed with smartphones, are racing online to shop - to the detriment of bricks and mortar stores. JD.com, an electronics focussed e-commerce portal has reported that it has received more orders in the first nine hours of trading on Friday than the whole of Singles Day 2014.

At this pace, Alibaba could be on track to sell over $20 billion in merchandise, according to analysts.

In just the first five minutes of this year's festival, crazed shoppers spent more than $1 billion.

"International brands find the event a fantastic opportunity to build new connection with Chinese customer", said Alibaba's president Michael Evans.

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